


Things I learnt

by blueblood (sangreazul)



Series: chartered lives [2]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Denial, Developing Friendships, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Freeform, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, M/M, Memories, Strained Friendships, slight canon divergance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28692546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sangreazul/pseuds/blueblood
Summary: He was eleven when he learnt how to steal full bottles of alcohol from the off-license down the road without anyone suspecting anything and fifteen when he learnt to take two and drop one behind the bushes of his house because, while the taste was bitter, it still warmed his throat.He was dishonourably discharged at 25. He learnt that things hardly ever go to plan and rolling with the punches was all that someone could do; this message remained ever present years later when he was shot in what was supposed to be his chest, but an accidentally placed journal changed that.There were a lot of things he learnt after he met Nate: compromise was a rather big hurdle for both of them, and, by the time Nate was 20, Victor hoped he at least knew a little bit on how to look after a growing teenager.Sully reflects on everything he's learnt throughout his life and what caused the lessons to be learnt in the first place.
Relationships: Elena Fisher & Victor Sullivan, Nathan Drake & Samuel Drake & Victor Sullivan, Nathan Drake & Victor Sullivan, Samuel Drake & Victor Sullivan, Samuel Drake/Victor Sullivan
Series: chartered lives [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2098251
Kudos: 4





	Things I learnt

**Author's Note:**

> this ended up being so much longer than i orignally intended & written mostly between classes (or during) lmao
> 
> anyway i wanted to touch slightly more on sully's past because he rly is a man of mystery.. most of it is canon compliant, but it fits into the same universe as the rest of the uncharted series i have

He learnt to read as a child, studied European languages in school, and played sports in the evenings. During those evenings, he learnt how to keep warm while wearing team uniform still, exactly how much water he needed to bring for a few hours because if he ran out he’d be so much worse off and how much money he’d have to take from his father’s wallet to get new trainers once his had worn down. In the mornings he learnt how to get himself out of bed and delicately tiptoe across the landing in utter silence. He learnt to hold his breath for longer periods of time, practising in his self-run bath that he learnt the comfortable temperature for. Upon learning the world seemed quieter under the surface, he let himself stay there for what he wanted to be hours, watching his hair float just above him. He learnt to never forget his key walking to and from school and to only take the back alleys if he knew he could run. He learnt to take the long route home, most days, and, by the time he was nine, how to let the trees and sky comfort him.

He was eleven when he learnt how to steal full bottles of alcohol from the off-license down the road without anyone suspecting anything and fifteen when he learnt to take two and drop one behind the bushes of his house because, while the taste was bitter, it still warmed his throat. He spent hours picking up odd jobs, hiding money away, and learnt to depend primarily on himself. He also learnt that loneliness was the quickest way to insanity so, although content with his thoughts, he had groups of people flocking around him daily. Their chatter would fill his lungs, swim around in his brain, and he could feel each and every one of their heartbeats, all in different times. He never felt his own. Late night house parties, hours in, he would excuse himself for the bathroom and press his forehead against the tiled walls. He let the bass fill him. At fifteen, he learnt to let the music guide him, flow through his veins as if the blood wasn’t needed anymore. 

If he had to sit down and list all the things he had learnt while in the navy, it would actually be surprisingly short, much to his teenage mind’s dismay. The morals he held much dearer he would suffer through a few years after, still, at sixteen, he dropped out of school, moved out, and began training. It wasn’t that he learnt nothing; it did pose as a good starting position on the criminal ladder. There were a lot a lessons he felt he only got the start of and thus couldn’t place it on the black or white spectrum. However, he did learn that humans crave touch, more so than he had ever thought. It began with fleeting glances, then lingering touches, then roughly making out against a wall while the superiors weren’t looking and then.. the sea was vast and expansive and that meant most of the young men just thought it didn’t count; some married, some engaged, some still wandering, but all of them held the same philosophy. They were lonely and liked the feel of his fingertips running against their skin. Their breaths would intertwine, but the dark air hung around them, and Victor always watched them when they shut their eyes. That was the funny thing about eyes, they gave away everything. Where they looked, what they wanted, how badly they wanted it.. he learnt to watch their eyes.

He was dishonourably discharged at 25. He learnt that things hardly ever go to plan and rolling with the punches was all that someone could do; this message remained ever present years later when he was shot in what was supposed to be his chest, but an accidentally placed journal changed that. As he wandered numerous foreign streets, breathing in the new air and watching the sun rise on different corners on the globe, he learnt to find his own freedom. It was a funny sort of freedom, walking job to job, never letting himself stoop to run.. which was perhaps his downfall. He slipped into horrible debt in the years after the navy, trying to balance his one-man apartment, flights and living. He learnt then, easily, that the world was huge and empty. He took many jobs, ignoring morality, and fluctuated between having to decide whether to eat that day and living with stability for a few months on end. 

It was on one of his more immoral jobs that he met a 14 year old kid, lost and alone, desperately putting on an arrogant facade, trying to both look danger in the eye and avoid its hits. There were a lot of things he learnt after he met Nate: compromise was a rather big hurdle for both of them, and, by the time Nate was 20, Victor hoped he at least knew a little bit on how to look after a growing teenager. He had also met his older brother a few months later, after Nate forced Victor to drive him up to a meeting point on the outskirts of the city, to pick Sam up in his beaten up car upon his release from prison. Their relationship was rocky more than anything, but he did care for Sam, and sharing the task of looking after Nate was a lot easier with someone Nate trusted blindly. 

They were sitting on the railings of a hotel balcony, long past 3am, just him and Sam, smoking, when he learnt to cherish it when someone shared a memory. Sam’s voice had been quiet, but steady, with long pauses over drags on his cigarette. Victor listened, to when his voice hitched, or he trailed off and picked it up again slightly later on, and he let the words hang in the air in front of them, seeing how each of them were laced with different kinds of sadness and hope. Nate had been asleep, in the room just behind them, so they could hear each toss and turn, and Sam could wake him up if he heard him panicking. Victor’s eyes followed Sam as he stood up, stretched a bit, then threw the cigarette down onto the street. He wished him a very timid good night, before sitting himself on the bed next to his sleeping brother. He thought about how Sam liked the nights, the twinkle in his eyes that shone when he and Nate had a long road trip ahead of them, how he preferred to stick to the sidelines on social events if he could help it. It was only a couple of years later when Victor found himself using these to make life a bit easier for the man who sacrificed everything for his brother; Sam had thanked him, in his own way, and began to let him take Nate out on jobs that he wouldn’t have before. The small trust that had formed was very delicate, and he held it gently in his hands. He’d learnt to remember the little things about a person.

He was pacing in the living room of their shabby two person apartment with Nate when he learnt a much harder truth. Nate was still, for once, which seemed to make Victor pace more. He stopped and turned to him in the silence and told him that he was allowed to be angry, that he could yell if wanted to, and he would take it. Nate shook his head. They’d just got back from Panama, after dropping Elena back at her place; he didn’t get a chance to ever explain himself. Nate looked tired and Victor could see the hurt he was trying to hide behind his eyes. When Nate noticed him staring, he shut them, pulled them closed tightly for a second. He let out a humourless laugh before opening them. It was then that he learnt how much stronger disappointment was than anger. 

Over the months of him trying to regain the relationship he and Nate had had prior, he was hit with the fact that his financial debt had caught up with him once more, but this time it wasn’t only affecting him. He could only sit back and watch as their friendship grew more strained, and Nate found other work across the globe with partners he hadn’t even met before, while Victor desperately sorted his own situation out. He found him again, when he was much more stable, in a prison in Turkey, and Nate seemed to have forgotten everything that went wrong between them. Realistically, Victor knew that dismissing previous hurt was unhealthy for the kid, but he was selfish enough to go along with their rekindled friendship until it was truly there again.

He learnt in a flurry of tears and resigned smiles that he wasn’t always right. Even after his speech at the airport in Yemen, and a few happy years of engagement, Nate and Elena had broken up for the final time, and they seemed happier for it too. Victor had watched Elena’s struggles with the walls Nate had built up around himself, relentlessly solitary in the most dangerous of ways, and learnt too that some people expect something you can’t give them. He nodded sincerely as they broke the news, not necessarily surprised in the given situation, but somewhat disappointed for Nate to be alone again. He couldn’t stand it if he ended up like him, just drifting, when so many people out there would drop everything to be by his side. But the trio still stayed together, content in their friendship without needing anything more.

Trust was the easiest thing to break, he knew that, he always knew that, but watching it crumble before his very eyes in a dim and stingy motel room in Madagascar, while Elena wept and Nate bit his lip seemed to force him to relearn it. Then Nate raised his voice and Victor wasn’t surprised again, he just nodded and followed Elena out. She then sobbed to him for hours in the comfort of his plane, broken and tired, fighting in her mind whether she deserved the stress that Nate put on her constantly, albeit accidentally, or if she should follow him. They came to a conclusion together, him gently guiding her through the myriad of her thoughts and she hugged him tightly.

He was lying in his bed next to Sam, who was asleep in his shirt and not much else, in the early hours of morning when he realised he was in love. He’d pushed it down, suppressed the knowledge for months, but as he gently planted kisses on his face, laced their fingers together and danced in the kitchen, he knew he couldn’t ignore it for any longer. So he left for months without a word to indicate where he was or why he was gone. He couldn’t tell until the last day if he was ever going to return; it was his pride, his selfishness, that forbade him from going home, to Nate, Elena, to Sam. 

He wanted to be remorseless, emotionless and cold, or say the whole thing with a huge smirk on his face. That didn’t happen. Victor thought it was funny, really, in hindsight, because after he confessed and Sam did too, the movies, the books, they all pointed to life becoming easy, a gentle stroll. But it was messy, and Victor thought about leaving again when he discovered he knew nothing about genuine love. He wanted to protect Sam, hold him when he was upset, and kiss him on the forehead in the kitchen, but all that really came out for the first few months were banterous insults and condescending, snide remarks. Nothing had changed, though perhaps he got meaner. 

It took about a year, if he was really counting, to say that he had actually learnt how to love. Not just a person; the world around him, Nate and Elena, laughing unapologetically, seeing incredible sights, waking up next to Sam. And after everything that he had learnt, and everything he hadn’t, he liked that moral the most.


End file.
